I have an application that includes data including the number of employees at a business. The number of employees is reported twice per year and eachreport is maintained in different tables. Each of these 2 tables contains multiple businesses and multiple years. The challenge is to obtain the most recent employee number for the business. The logic goes something like this:
1. Look in table1 (pei) for this business and select the employee number for the current year.
2. If the number thus obtained is 0, look in table2 (history) for this business and select the employee number for the current year.
3. If the number thus obtained is still 0, go back to table1 and select the employee number for this business for the previous year.

I have written the following function to perform this task which works, but it is slow. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to speed this up, OR is there a totally different approach to the task?

Thanks for any thoughts.

function GetRecentFTE()
	lparameters lcPermID
	local closeit, lnFTE, lnFTE2, lnOldWorkArea
	lnOldWorkArea = select()
	closeit = used('pei')
	select (fulltime + parttime) as tFTE ;
		from new_pe_pei_database!pei ;
		where PermId = lcPermID and _year <= year(date()) ;
		order by _year ;
		into cursor crsTempFTE
	if _tally > 0				&&	If I found at least 1 record
		go bott
		lnFTE = tFTE
		if ! bof()
			skip -1
		endif
		lnFTE2 = tFTE
		use in crsTempFTE
		if ! closeit
			use in pei
		endif
	else
		lnFTE = 0
		lnFTE2= 0
	endif
	closeit = used('history')
	if lnFTE = 0				&&	There was no data in PEI so ck the survey history
		select surveys_distributed ;
			from newsurveys!history ;
			where PermId = lcPermID and _year <= year(date()) ;
			order by _year ;
			into cursor crsTempFTE
		if _tally > 0
			go bott
			lnFTE = surveys_distributed
		else
			lnFTE = 0
		endif
		use in crsTempFTE
		if ! closeit
			use in history
		endif
	endif
	select(lnOldWorkArea)
	if lnFTE > 0
		return lnFTE
	else
		return lnFTE2
	endif